What To Do When Meal Planning Never Seems To Work For You

It's easy enough to set up a meal plan, but maintaining it is a different story. Maybe you don't have the patience to dig up recipes every week. Maybe you're busy. Whatever the scenario, if meal planning hasn't clicked with you, here are five alternatives that don't involve eating out.

Buy Flexible Ingredients

For me, meal planning is hard to maintain partly because I make it too complicated. I look for fancy, complex recipes. They might be fun when I have extra time on my hands but for a quick, after work meal, they aren't ideal. Rather than look for specific ingredients for intricate recipes, buy some generic staples you can mix and match. Here's how one of our readers put it:

For example, Life As Mum has a handful of pre-made meal plans you can save or print out. They include links to the recipes you need, along with weekly shopping lists. Whole Foods has their own option, too (prepare for a big grocery bill, though). And Greatist has a pre-made grocery list when shopping for one. Save or bookmark the site, pull it up in-store, and buy what you need. When you're ready to cook, just look up the corresponding recipes.

Just Prep a Marinade or Seasoning Blend

Rather than plan an entire week's worth of different meals, plan the marinade instead. Prep a few different marinades, rubs, or seasoning mixes in advance. Then you can make the same thing every day in different marinades or seasonings, or mix and match to keep your dinners interesting. It's a lot less time consuming and you have fewer ingredients to keep up with. You can make a decent marinade with just a few ingredients that you may already have at home. Food52 breaks down the formula:

Depending on the marinade, you may still have to shop for specific items, but there are fewer ingredients involved. Chances are, you can find an easy marinade recipe for stuff you have on hand, anyway. Plus, the meal prep is a lot easier. You don't have to spend half your Sunday making a batch of pasta to last the entire week.

You'll pay more with these plans than if you were to plan on your own. You'll get a decent meal, though. It might be a dish you've never tried before and it might cost you more at a restaurant. Plus, they're kind of fun.

Meal planning isn't exactly difficult but it's just another routine you have to maintain. If you're not good at organising your dinners or you just don't feel like taking the time to do it each week, you can still eat at home without painstakingly planning out every meal.

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